Nutritional aspects of composite flours for baked and extruded products: A review

Abstract Background and Objectives Global hunger and the prevalence of severe food malnutrition have increased worldwide, underlining the need to develop new nutritive food products. Composite flour (CF) is a growing technology that aims to increase the nutritional composition of flours. Thus, this study aimed to systematically search and investigate studies that examined the effects of CF development and its properties. In addition, perspectives for better use of CF as a real source of nutritional ingredients are underlined. Findings Different materials have been used for CF elaboration and their use in bakery products improves nutritional composition, mainly protein, fiber, and phenolic compound content, in addition to providing products with good sensory acceptance. However, the higher protein concentration in CF is not accompanied by higher protein digestibility, and generally, this property is not evaluated to guarantee the nutritional improvement of protein aspects. Conclusions CF may represent a strategy for food security and nutritional health, particularly in terms of protein intake. However, to ensure protein absorption, further studies on protein digestibility must be conducted. In addition, the extrusion process seems to represent a strategy for the production of cheaper and nutritional CF with improved nutritional value and high protein digestion capacity.